Signed-in as admin on just part of the site

I discovered that by adding a call to get_currentuserinfo(); in header.php the problem appears to be solved. I still do not know why it happened, but at least this is a working solution for anyone else who happens to have this problem.

Note: Following @jgraup’s suggestion above, I’m posting this as an answer. However, I am not marking this as accepted because I still do not know the original reason for the odd behavior, and maybe someone has a better solution.

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